The Future of Narrative Change is Here
From October 2024 to July 2025, Youth Speaks will engage a new generation of young artists and alumni to participate in collaborative narrative projects that bridge public and poetic will.
Over the 9-month fellowship, Public Poet Fellows will serve as ambassadors of youth culture, with the tools to interrogate policies, translate complex social issues impacting young people of color, and uplift the ways young artists animate civic life.
This fellowship is tremendously beneficial to young adults 16-26, who have either aged out of Youth Speaks’ core programs and services or are looking to deepen their artistic development with an eye on influencing the public sphere. Fellows receive a $15,000 unrestricted stipend with opportunities for mentorship, peer learning, and movement and power-building training from field leaders.
Public Poets Fellowship 2024 Cohort
Sejahari Saulter-Villegas is a multidisciplinary storyteller from Chicago using his voice to uplift and advocate for underrepresented stories in film, music, theater, spoken word and fashion. From the fall of 2022 until the fall of 2024, he was selected as a Marshall Scholar, receiving a Masters degree in Race, Media and Social Justice from Goldsmiths University and a Masters in Filmmaking from the London Film Academy at the University of Derby. Earning his Bachelors in Drama from New York University, Sejahari has continuously committed himself to carving out space for underrepresented voices within multiple artistic disciplines. He also directed a short form documentary for the British Arts Council Collection and most recently was awarded as a winning director for his short film The Grasp of Death(2024) at the Next Step Film Festival in Venice. He is planning to continue submitting to film festivals around the globe with hopes of getting funding for his next short film entitled Primary.
Tyris Winter is a desert-raised but L.A.-based artist who uses poetry and fashion as a form of expression and connection to their community. Through this Tyris has been able to connect with L.A. Times, The Broad Museum, Youth To The People, UCLA, and even creating a line with Vans. Winter is passionate about not only uplifting themselves through expression but the many queer youth who are raised with binaries and confinements and still have dreams regardless.
Ariana Lee (she/her/她) is a Taiwanese and Chinese American writer from Houston, TX. She is the 2022-2023 Houston Youth Poet Laureate and two-time member of Meta4 Houston, the #1 ranked youth slam poetry team at Brave New Voices 2023 (the first Houston team to win the title).
A YoungArts winner in both poetry and spoken word, Lee has opened for U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón and performed original work for NASA; Stop AAPI Hate; the NCAA Men's Final Four Legacy Project presented by Degree; the Aspen Institute; the Houston Mayor's Office, and more. She has collaborated with and performed for Get Lit - Words Ignite, The Battery SF, Children's Museum Houston, Anderson Collection at Stanford University.
As a 2022-2023 Youth Fellow for the International Human Rights Art Movement, she curated an international, multimedia anthology highlighting youth voices and international solidarity.
Nathan Wallace is a poet and teaching artist based in Atlanta, originally from Hinesville, Georgia. His work centers on using poetry to address civic trauma, advocate for policy change, and reimagine the public realm as a space for healing and equity. Focusing on communities where marginalized youth—particularly BIPOC, queer, disabled, poor, and immigrant individuals—feel neglected by the government, Nathan’s poetry amplifies underrepresented voices.
As the 2019 Atlanta Youth Poet Laureate and 2023 Soul Fried and March Madness Poetry Slam Runner-up, Nathan has published two acclaimed works: I’m My Own Therapist (2019) and Before My Own Eulogy (2022).
A two-time Future Corps Director, Nathan has worked with organizations such as BET, the Atlanta Hawks, East Atlanta Kids Club, and Georgia Broadcasting. His workshops cover topics from mental health to activism, empowering participants to claim their stories and engage with civic issues.
Pte San Win Little Whiteman is an Oglala Lakota poet who uses poetry for advocacy and healing. Most of their poetry highlights mental health awareness, environmental, racial, and social justice, land/body relationships, and language revitalization. They are Brave New Voices alumni and have experience performing on stages such as The Kennedy Center, Native Pop, Black Hills Artist Market, and Poetry Out Loud. They were interviewed for Teen Vogue and Indian Country Today, and they won a publication with the Tribal College Journal for AIHEC's creative writing contest in August 2023. Pte San Win is a youth coordinator for NDN Girls Book Club and has experience facilitating writing workshops, poetry slams, and open mics. They hope to inspire others to read, write, and perform poetry as it is an act of oral & aural tradition. A practice that has kept many cultures alive today.
For more information on the Public Poet Fellowship 2024 cohort follow @powerlab.global on Instagram.
Narrative Change Campaigns
Power Lab brings together youth, organizers, industry experts, and community leaders to leverage the power of culture to influence policy, combat misinformation, and heal civic trauma.
How It Works
- We bring together passionate young poets to learn about the power of public narratives and social justice storytelling
- We explore dominant narratives about complex issues at the center of young people’s lives
- We innovate and create new poems, ensemble performances, digital films, and PSAs that connect individual voices to collective stories
